Place:Stornoway, Ross and Cromarty, Scotland

source: Family History Library Catalog

The Parish

Stornoway is a parish on the Island of Lewis in the Western Isles council area, some 30 miles (49 km) northeast of Tarbert in the Western Isles and 45 miles (72 km) northwest of Gairloch in Highland. It faces the Scottish mainland and has a northwestern border with the parish of Barvas. The civil parish of Stornoway has a population of approximately 12,000. (The town of Stornoway has 9,000 of this total.)

Prior to 1975 the parish was located in the old county of Ross and Cromarty, which was replaced in that year by the Outer Hebrides Region and in 1996 by the unitary authority named the Western Isles council area.

The parish has an area of 265.5 sq. km (102.5 sq. miles) and includes the town of Stornoway. Other settlements of some size are Bayble and Portnaguran on Point (see below), and Coll and Tolsta to the north and west of Stornoway Town. The smaller scattered settlements are Aird, Aignish, Garrabost, Gress, Knock, Sheshader, Shulishader and Swordale.

Point or the Eye Peninsula

Point (Scottish Gaelic: An Rubha), also known as the Eye Peninsula, is a peninsula situated very close to regional capital Stornoway. It is connected to the rest of the Isle of Lewis by a narrow isthmus, one mile in length and barely 100 metres wide. The peninsula itself is more that 6 miles long and about 2-1/2 miles wide. Point is home to around 2,600 people and is one of the few districts of the Western Isles or Outer Hebrides of Scotland where the population is actually increasing. However, the school population of Point is decreasing as much as the rest of Scotland.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Stornoway, Outer Hebrides.

Notes for the Highland Council Area and the Western Isles Council Area

The local archives are held by The Highland Archive Service which is based in Inverness with branches in Stornoway, Fort William and Caithness. It is "responsible for locating, preserving and making accessible archives relating to all aspects of the history of the geographical area of the Highlands."

Family history societies and historical associations covering the Highland Council Area and the Western Isles Council Area are:

• The Highland Family History Society based in Inverness.
• Lochaber and North Argyll Family History Group based in Fort William.

These associations publish their aims on their websites as well as a list of publications. In many cases the publications are also available through the Scottish Genealogy Society (see below).

• The FreeCen Project--Scotland has a searchable (not browsable) transcription for each of the counties in the area. Nairnshire and Caithness have the 1841, 1851, 1861 and 1871 complete. Inverness-shire and Ross and Cromarty have 1841 complete with some work on 1851 and Sutherland has not completed 1841.

Transcriptions of Gravestone Inscriptions

• The Scottish Genealogy Society provides a series of monumental inscriptions either in print in booklet form or on CD for each of the counties in the area (Caithness, Inverness-shire, Nairnshire, Ross and Cromarty, and Sutherland). Some of the booklets cover only one graveyard, others cover a group. Prices vary. In many cases the coverage is of pre-1855 stones only--this is because gravestone inscriptions are often used by family historians as death registration equivalents in the era of the Old Parish Registers (when deaths were not universally recorded).
• The Fearn Peninsula Graveyards Project has a paid website which allows browsing in ten graveyards in Easter Ross. They charge £2.50 for 24 hours of usage with unlimited searches.
• An index of monumental inscriptions from Caithness compiled by D J Ryrie might prove to be a useful start for searching gravestones in that county. GENUKI states "All (?) of the monumental inscriptions (MIs) in Caithness have been collected and are in print currently from Books From Scotland amongst other places." The Scottish Genealogy Society also has a list of their holdings.
• Sutherland cemeteries are covered in Pre-1855 tombstone inscriptions in Sutherland burial grounds by A S Cowper & I Ross, published at Edinburgh in 1989 by the Scottish Genealogy Society.
• There are no specific notes for gravestone transcriptions for either Inverness-shire or Nairnshire in GENUKI. However, the Scottish Genealogy Society lists booklets for both counties.

Sources for Emigration Records

• Hebrides People have a database containing lists of people who emigrated to North America from a number of parishes in the Western Isles.

Extra Research Tips

• Hebrides People is a website specializing in this area. It charges for its services.
• The Scottish Genealogy Network is a blog that advises on new databases about Scotland as they come online.